CBD Oil Added—Then Quickly Removed—From Target’s Shopping Website

Earlier this week, Target added CBD oil to their online store, making it one of the few places where one could obtain a CBD product via a multi-national retail corporation—one, that is, in the same class as big-hitters like Walmart and Kmart.

Unfortunately, this would prove to be short-lived: Only hours after the hemp extracts were made available for purchase on Thursday morning, they were yanked off (digital) shelves.

CW Hemp, a company based out of Denver, Colorado, announced on Thursday that their brand of CBD oil named “Charlotte’s Web,” among three other product lines, would be available to buy straight from Target’s website. Later that afternoon, these wares were taken down without any explanation from the corporation.

For confirmation, a search on the Target website for “CW Hemp” yielded no returns, with the exception of a “no results found” page, as confirmed by the Cannabist, which broke the story.

Final Hit: CBD Oil Removed From Target’s Online Store

In a statement obtained by the Cannabist, Target explained their reason for removing the product from their website.

“We started carrying Charlotte’s Web hemp extract items last week on Target.com,” a spokesperson wrote. “After further review, we have decided to remove it from our assortment.”

Since then, representatives from the corporation have not commented on the matter. Subsequently, no further information has been given on the sudden removal.

This isn’t a first time a major chain has sold a cannabis-related product and swiftly took it down from their e-commerce site. Back in July, Walmart began selling a rosin press for dabs at their online store and then immediately took it down with no word as to why.

Like Target, Walmart did not issue a release on the matter.

While CBD oil, a compound extracted from hemp, contains none of the psychoactive effects of THC, it is still not considered legal in all 50 states. Companies that produce CBD oil have long held to the claim that the legality of their product is defined by the fact that CBD products are almost always derived from hemp.

According to the DEA, however, this definition does not adhere to the cannabis plant’s status as a Schedule I drug or its ruling under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). As the DEA noted, both hemp and marijuana fall under the umbrella category of “cannabis”—so while CBD might not get you high, CBD sales are prohibited in states where cannabis has not been fully legalized.